I was in the middle of my presentation. Before me was a stadium full of people I barely knew. Then something happened.

It is what all speakers dread.

My slides disappeared from the big screen behind me. Gone. And they never came back. It was a moment that all speakers hope will never happen.

But it did.

Stories touch hearts

People will forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.

In that quote (often attributed to Carl Buechner) is the truth about the art of storytelling. Touching people’s hearts is at the centre of engagement.

When I started my online publishing venture it was all about the facts. Information, data and stats. When I commenced my speaking career my Powerpoint’s was all about bullet points. More information and more stuff. When I began writing emails the facts were the main hero.

But if you want to move people, educate and transform you need more than that in your toolbox.

1. Presentations and speaking need the art of storytelling

It was the keynote at a conference in Lisbon and in front of me sat 700 people.

10 minutes into the presentation the computers driving the Powerpoint crashed. I was without the safety net and there was nowhere to hide.

I then had a quick and private nightmare……An “Oh gosh” moment.

It will happen to all of us some time as we live in a world where the machines do misbehave! Despite the best efforts of the tech team the slides never quite made it back. So it was time to dig deep and to keep calm and cool.

I had no choice. The solution was 30 minutes of storytelling from the heart without a safety net.

Bruno was in the crowd and later shared it as an observer on my Facebook page.

“From this side, the speech is so much more genuine, that you can tell the difference. Suddenly, we felt that we were jumping with you into the storytelling! What a great micro-moment!!”

One of my speaking coaches made a suggestion that changed my approach to delivering keynotes. “Tell a story and make a point…then do it again“.